Obama fundraises, catches Keystone heat in Calif.

Source: AP-Excite

By JIM KUHNHENN

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - President Barack Obama is raising money for the Democratic Party in California, eager to weaken his Republican opposition in Congress even as he confronts protests from his liberal flank over a contested oil pipeline project that is awaiting approval from his administration.

Obama was attending four fundraisers for Democrats in the San Francisco area Wednesday and Thursday, urging donors to help wrest the House away from Republicans and to reinstate House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi as House speaker.

Environmental activists protested the pipeline, knows as the Keystone XL project, outside one of the events, and his host at another one is a vocal opponent of the project. The pipeline would transport oil from Canada's tar sands to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.

"No pipeline for the 1 percent," demonstrators chanted about a block and a half from the Pacific Heights home of composer and philanthropist Gordon Getty, who was hosting a dinner fundraising event.

6. This is 10's of billions of $$$. or 100's of billions.

The tarsands has enormous momentum built up over years.

IMO the project can't be stopped, it can only be controlled - the development of it must be taken out of the hands of the corporations owning it, directly profiting from it, because the decisions of those companies has nothing to do with what is of most benefit to the people of NA.

For example, why the *&%# is anyone even thinking about sending raw bitumen sludge all the way from northern Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico to be processed. What kind of crap has to be melded into that sludge to allow it to flow that distance? What happens to that crap, and the rest of the waste, once it arrives at the Gulf of Mexico? What happens to the desertified land of northern Alberta once the resource is depleted, what happens to the utterly destroyed ecosystem (the rivers, lakes, are already cancerous)? The companies that profit from this development DO NOT WANT THESE TOPICS ADDRESSED, because dealing with these issues requires moneys taken from investors pockets.

IMO what's required is a paradigm shift in North American governance. It is required FAST.
In this regard, I think more credence ought to be given to the South America example, e.g. to the Bolivarian revolution, to that kind of grass roots, people first, thinking where it is understood as patently obvious that *the natural resources of a country belong to the people*.

9. Well said. You should post this as a separate OP, so it will be read by more people.

10. I agree - the project can NOT be stopped. Too many international deals peripheral

to Keystone have no doubt been made over the years, because Hillary and her team were always 100% behind Keystone. Every pause has been purely for political theater and to give Clinton the distance from the signing that she will need to have a smooth primary. I have no doubt Kerry (who was always against the deal) was required to accept the deal as done and take the hits for the signing, as well, in order to become Sec of State. I hope he does manage to influence it in part, at least to curb the most onerous aspects of it.